Fanny was not the kind of girl you imagined growing up to be a prostitute. Raised on a small farm in upstate New York she received a fine education and was reported to be a bookish girl, which is a nice old timey way of calling her a nerd. Unfortunately for Fanny, her probable life of milking cows and making babies until she died was derailed at age eighteen when she became the victim of a seducer. In old fashioned times a seducer was a man who seduced "naive" young women with the promise of marriage in order to get into their pants. Many a young woman, understandably a little anxious after years of sexual repression, jumped the gun a bit on the honeymoon portion, only to find their would be husbands running off to the hills. Now to the modern day sophisticate, this may sound mildly unfortunate, but not world ending. Unfortunately, in the Victorian era such abandoned women were considered ruined, like a bruised peach, and no respectable man or woman of the time wanted anything to do with a damaged peach. In fact, this was such a problem that it later led to the development of engagement rings. So, there you go ladies, not only is your ring probably mined by slave children, it also represents a time when women were thought of the same as a piece of fruit. Way to hold onto that tradition.
With her reputation totally fucked, Fanny fled to live with her brother in New York City, where she got a shitty job cleaning hotel rooms. However, her brother, probably worried that bruised peach syndrome was contagious or something, kicked her out a short time later. With nowhere else to go she moved into a brothel and became a whore, where her societal status was more of an attribute than a detriment. The mid-1800's was a particularly unpleasant time to be a prostitute, not that it really ever is, what with the rampant tuberculosis and syphilis. On the plus side, most brothels were owned by women, which seems kind of like common sense since putting a man in charge of a brothel is like having your kids guard the jar of cookies; it just doesn't work. Luckily for Fanny, she had a good head on her shoulders, unaffected by the ravages of syphilis, and within four years she owned the brothel where she worked. Not content with her low standing she began to live the good life, taking a New York politician named Danny Sickles as her paramour. A paramour was a man a prostitute considered herself to be in a relationship with. She didn't charge him money, but he did give her a lot of really nice gifts, which makes it totally different. Danny took her to all sorts of fancy dinners and parties, much to the chagrin of the other guests.
Fanny, what with her head for numbers, continued to grow her business, starting a high class brothel for rich merchants, politicians, and foreign dignitaries. She also gave away freebies to the local police for reasons that can only be described as obvious. The only run in with the law she had was when she was arrested for walking around dressed as a man, which apparently was worse than fucking strangers for money. Fanny also funded one of Danny's re-election campaigns, which caused a big enough scandal that he married a fifteen year old girl (which totally makes sense). Fanny, pissed as hell, beat him with a horsewhip in the lobby of a fancy hotel. However, Danny got back into her good graces, and into the rest of her presumably, by taking her to England with him instead of his young bride. In London, Fanny openly accompanied Danny to theaters, operas, and diplomatic events. She even got Danny to present her to Queen Victoria, though under the assumed surname of one Danny's political rivals. Danny's superiors, less than amused with all this, forced him to break up with Fanny soon after. Brokenhearted, Fanny then went on a tour of Europe, visiting aristocratic resorts and sleeping with aristocrats, until she was forcefully removed from a Paris Opera for making a drunken scene. She then returned to New York and opened a second brothel.
Upon returning home Fanny decided that she would try her hand at not being a whore anymore, so set her sights on finding a respectable husband. After a few false starts she finally met her goal with a lawyer, seven years her junior, named Eddie Blankman. For Eddie, Fanny might have been a whore, but by god, she was a rich whore. Now miraculously respectable, Fanny proceeded to lavish the family that had abandoned her all those years ago with a multitude of gifts, even paying for her niece's schooling. However, she refused to sign any of her property over to her new husband, because her life had made her no fool, though the fact that he tried to fuck her niece also probably had something to do with it. Unfortunately for Fanny, her life as a respectable woman was not to last long. She died at the age of 37 of internal bleeding. Her family, convinced that her dick of a husband poisoned her, had her dug up and examined several times to try and find proof, but none was ever found. It is estimated that Fanny was worth around $2 million in today's money at the time of her death. After a lengthy legal battle that went clear to the state supreme court, Eddie inherited everything.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FannyWhite.jpg